ERIC Number: EJ1125805
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2157-2100
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Random Forests for Evaluating Pedagogy and Informing Personalized Learning
Spoon, Kelly; Beemer, Joshua; Whitmer, John C.; Fan, Juanjuan; Frazee, James P.; Stronach, Jeanne; Bohonak, Andrew J.; Levine, Richard A.
Journal of Educational Data Mining, v8 n2 p20-50 2016
Random forests are presented as an analytics foundation for educational data mining tasks. The focus is on course- and program-level analytics including evaluating pedagogical approaches and interventions and identifying and characterizing at-risk students. As part of this development, the concept of individualized treatment effects (ITE) is introduced as a method to provide personalized feedback to students. The ITE quantifies the effectiveness of intervention and/or instructional regimes for a particular student based on institutional student information and performance data. The proposed random forest framework and methods are illustrated in the context of a study of the efficacy of a supplemental, weekly, one-unit problem-solving session in a large enrollment, bottleneck introductory statistics course. The analytics tools are used to identify factors for student success, characterize the benefits of a supplemental instruction section, and suggest intervention initiatives for at-risk groups in the course. In particular, we develop an objective criterion to determine which students should be encouraged, at the beginning of the semester, to join a supplemental instruction section.
Descriptors: Data Analysis, Individualized Instruction, Teaching Methods, Intervention, Feedback (Response), Instructional Effectiveness, Problem Solving, Units of Study, Introductory Courses, Statistics, Mathematics Instruction, At Risk Students, College Students, Evaluation
International Educational Data Mining. e-mail: jedm.editor@gmail.com; Web site: http://jedm.educationaldatamining.org/index.php/JEDM
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California (San Diego)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A